Ethical Hacking Basics

Cards · 52

Ethical Hacking

Authorized practice of bypassing system security to identify potential data breaches and vulnerabilities legally.

White Hat Hacker

An authorized security professional who uses hacking skills defensively to protect systems and find weaknesses.

Black Hat Hacker

A malicious actor who violates computer security for personal gain, destruction, or illegal activities.

Grey Hat Hacker

An individual who may violate laws or ethical standards without malicious intent, often disclosing flaws without prior permission.

Red Hat Hacker

A vigilante security actor who actively targets and attacks black hat hackers to shut down their operations.

Blue Hat Hacker

An external security professional invited by an organization to test a system for bugs before launch.

Green Hat Hacker

A novice who is eager to learn hacking techniques but lacks technical knowledge and experience.

Script Kiddie

An unskilled individual who uses existing scripts and tools developed by others without understanding how they work.

Hacktivist

A hacker who breaches systems to promote political, social, or religious agendas rather than financial gain.

State-Sponsored Hacker

An operative funded by a sovereign government to conduct cyber warfare, espionage, or sabotage against targets.

Penetration Testing

A simulated cyberattack against a computer system authorized to check for exploitable vulnerabilities.

Vulnerability Assessment

The systematic review of security weaknesses in an information system without necessarily exploiting them.

Reconnaissance (Footprinting)

The initial phase of ethical hacking focused on gathering as much information about the target as possible.

Passive Reconnaissance

Gathering information about a target without directly interacting with or alerting the target systems.

Active Reconnaissance

Gathering target information by directly probing networks and hosts, which may trigger security alerts.

Scanning

The phase where tools are used to identify live hosts, open ports, and active services on a target network.

Port Scanning

A technique to send client requests to network ports to determine which services and ports are open or closed.

Gaining Access

The phase where the attacker exploits discovered vulnerabilities to enter the target system or network.

Maintaining Access

Securing continuous control over the compromised system using backdoors, rootkits, or trojans.

Clearing Tracks

Modifying or deleting log files and temporary artifacts to conceal unauthorized activity from administrators.

Reporting Phase

The critical ethical hacking step of documenting findings, risks, and remediation advice for the client.

Rules of Engagement (RoE)

A formal document defining the boundaries, authorized scopes, testing times, and constraints of a security test.

Scope of Work (SoW)

An agreed-upon document specifying exact targets, IP ranges, applications, and systems allowed to be tested.

Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)

A legal contract ensuring sensitive vulnerabilities and data found during testing remain confidential.

CIA Triad

A guiding security model consisting of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.

Confidentiality

Ensuring that sensitive information is accessible only to authorized individuals and systems.

Integrity

Maintaining and assuring the accuracy, completeness, and uncorrupted state of data over its lifecycle.

Availability

Ensuring that systems, networks, and applications are functioning and accessible to authorized users when needed.

Vulnerability

A flaw or weakness in system design, implementation, or operation that could be exploited.

Threat

Any circumstance or event with the potential to adversely impact an asset through unauthorized access or damage.

Exploit

A piece of software, script, or command sequence designed to take advantage of a specific vulnerability.

Zero-Day Vulnerability

A software security flaw that is unknown to the vendor and has no available patch or fix.

Social Engineering

Manipulating individuals psychologically into divulging confidential information or performing insecure actions.

Phishing

Fraudulent communication, usually email, disguised to trick recipients into revealing sensitive data or installing malware.

OSINT (Open Source Intelligence)

Data collected and analyzed from publicly available sources for intelligence gathering purposes.

Black Box Testing

A testing approach where the ethical hacker has no prior knowledge of the target's internal architecture.

White Box Testing

A testing method where the ethical hacker is given full internal knowledge, documentation, and source code.

Grey Box Testing

A hybrid testing method where the tester has partial knowledge of the internal system or access credentials.

Privilege Escalation

Gaining unauthorized elevated permissions, such as moving from a standard user to administrator rights.

Backdoor

A covert method of bypassing normal authentication or security controls to secure remote access.

Rootkit

Stealthy software designed to hide the existence of unauthorized processes or programs on a system.

Malware

Any malicious software intentionally designed to cause damage to a computer, server, client, or network.

Ransomware

Malware that encrypts a victim's files and demands payment in exchange for the decryption key.

SQL Injection (SQLi)

A flaw where malicious SQL statements are inserted into input fields to manipulate backend databases.

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

A web vulnerability enabling attackers to inject client-side scripts into web pages viewed by other users.

Denial-of-Service (DoS)

A cyberattack intended to render a machine or network unavailable to its intended users by flooding it with traffic.

Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS)

A DoS attack launched simultaneously from multiple compromised distributed devices or botnets.

Man-in-the-Middle (MitM)

An attack where the perpetrator secretly intercepts and relays communications between two parties.

Brute Force Attack

A trial-and-error method used by software to guess passwords or cryptographic keys systematically.

Bug Bounty Program

A crowdsourced initiative where organizations reward external ethical hackers for reporting verified security flaws.

Responsible Disclosure

A vulnerability disclosure process giving software vendors reasonable time to patch flaws before public release.

Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)

A public dictionary of standardized identifiers for known cybersecurity vulnerabilities.